research
Recent evidence from Canada suggests that, following partial stand harvesting, mortality of residual trees is often elevated above ‘background’ mortality rates. In general, Post-Harvest Mortality is highest where harvest intensity is high and retention is dispersed rather than aggregated. However, the mechanisms for this pulse of mortality remain poorly quantified. Potential causes include windthrow, fungal pathogens, water stress, soil compaction, and changes in stand microclimate.
Currently, the Yukon Territory’s forest management practices show an industry in its infancy with harvest regimes largely based on models adopted from northern British Columbia and Alberta. However, with Mountain Pine Beetle ravaging many forests in these provinces and a dwindling timber supply resulting from unsustainable harvest levels, the vast timber reserves of the Yukon are quickly becoming an attractive resource for large forest companies. With the increased interest in these forest resources and the drafting of new guidelines for the territory, understanding the mechanisms of Post-Harvest Mortality is absolutely essential for any hope of sustainable management.
My thesis will therefore investigate the spatial, temporal, geographic, and climatic factors involved in Post-Harvest Mortality within the specific environment of the Yukon’s boreal forest. With increasing demands being placed upon forests across the globe and climate change presenting distinct challenges to forest systems, the successful management of our renewable resources in a sustainable manner is of paramount importance. To this end, management of these resources must be guided by an understanding of stand dynamics operating at a local scale. Furthermore, this project will seek to address the specific challenges facing the Yukon Territorial government in their new role as primary stewards of their forest resources so that the mistakes made in southern Canada are not repeated in a more fragile forest region.
This study is timely and necessary because forest management in the Yukon should not and cannot repeat the mistakes made in other provinces. Devolution will see the drafting of new policies and procedures for forest managers that must be informed by the specific study of Yukon forests. The processes I am studying have not been properly dealt with due to the lack of resources for forest study in the Yukon, coupled with the unfortunate lack of attention paid to the impacts of industrial logging operations in these boreal forests. My intention through this graduate work is to enrich, broaden, and inform new approaches to forest management that contribute to the sustainable management of this valuable, renewable, natural resource.